This invention relates to travel scheduling and pricing, and more particularly to processing queries for air travel planning systems.
In travel planning such as for air travel scheduling and pricing, low-fare-search queries are posed by users from travel agent systems, airline reservation agent systems, travel web sites, and airline-specific web sites. Low-fare-search (LFS) queries typically include origin and destination information, time constraints and additional information including passenger profile and travel preferences. Travel planning computer systems respond to these LFS queries and typically return a list of possible tickets, each having flight and price information. Some systems return answers in a compact form such as through a pricing graph.
Most travel planning systems require each input LFS query to specify a narrow range of possible travel dates, e.g., one-day range, such as “depart anytime on August 2”, or perhaps a slightly longer range, such as “return on either August 9 or 10.” Most systems do not permit queries with more flexibility in their travel dates such as a query, “depart anytime in August.”
Some travel websites such as Travelocity® and Expedia®, provide a type of flexible-date query in the form of a “fare calendar.” The fare calendar technique requires a user to select one fare (for example, the United Airlines BOS-LAX fare with basis code QE14NR). The site will display a calendar indicating the available travel dates for flights using that particular fare.